The Shake-up
This section originally appeared as part of Why this book? in the Manifesto v0.8. The other sections of that chapter appear below: * The Shake-up * The Age of the Spirit * New Spiritual Leadership * New Reformation * Sacrificing the Church's Idols * Disciples Answering the Call * Expect Conflict * The Red Pill or the Blue Pill? * Summary of Why this Book? * Goals of the Manifesto * An emerging Apostolic Picture I have reasons to believe that we have entered a time prophesied in the ancient book of Haggai: Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens, indicating the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. In this first decade of the 21st century, we are crossing the threshold of an era of world history in which we will witness a shaking of everything that can possibly be shaken. Values, systems, patterns, currencies, loyalties, cities, icons, landmarks, rules, institutions, organizations - everything manmade already is, or definitely will be, shaken to the core, so much so that its marrow and bones will be seen, the wires will show, and its entrails will be exposed. Finally, under immense and unbearable pressure, when our human designs are forced to drop the curtain by which we have guarded our most secret secrets, the world will be able to gaze upon the inner workings, the core of the core of it all, and it will be in plain view: the engine, the heart that drives it all, quite literally, the spirit of things. After this shaking, our human towers and concepts either will wither into oblivion, falter away and fall apart – or call out for reinforcement, backup, the cavalry, the necessary empowerment by a force beyond ourselves, without which nothing that is will sustain for long. No government, company, church, not even a family will be able to survive or even thrive in a hostile or even toxic environment of fierce competition, overpowering pressures, and a merciless race to the top, without doing the trip and ultimately walking up to a plug point, to a power source outside the visible world. The question is: what current will it be, AC or DC? By what, or, more precisely, by whom, will we be powered, when we realize that we just cannot sustain ourselves on our own? Globalization is only a symptom, not the cause, of this high adrenaline era. After an age of revolutions of all kinds, the subsequent attempts at fierce democratization, the struggle for independence and even liberty, we have seen that man just cannot but either rule or be ruled. There is no such thing as a free man, as many sobering French are realizing now. After a wild era of liberty, savoir de vivre, licentiousness, and being against of being against, many are seeking rules to live by, looking for their own long-lost roots, and - can you believe it? - Guidelines. Is there a rulebook out there, a manual of life? Globally, we are definitely witnessing the return of the Empires; America, the emerging China, and even imperialistic terrorist networks like Al Qaeda are all showing the unmistaken hallmarks of trans-national empires. This poses a crucial question: who are the emperors? Of what stuff are they made? And who crowns them? All this has a much more simple reason than any Wall Street, Pentagon, or political analyst or journalist could fathom by looking at the surface of things. To put it bluntly and cut to the chase: God has stood up. He is getting ready for the last part. As God gets ready to revisit the planet, a final homecoming, he brings his house in order so that it may finally achieve the very reason for which he created it in the first place. My prophetic friend Erich Reber of Switzerland calls this “The Return of the Holy”. This has huge implications, politically, economically, and spiritually. It will fix a hefty price tag on every form of spiritual anarchy, once-celebrated independence, where we even run churches by zeitgeist-driven rules that we invent as we go, and discard as we go on. There is no such thing as spiritual licentiousness. But where people ignored this, it has lead to the establishment of churches after the image and skillful imaginations of men, churches, that at best are religious reflections of the culture that birthed them – lifestyle churches like ice cream, the flavor of the day. This has made the religious church-cart so heavily overloaded with human programs and stuff that it has lifted the donkey pulling the load straight into the air, as you can see in this picture from India. Christian leaders are so bogged down with running the shows that their feet have lost contact with earth. Some of them are realizing it, some not yet. Can you hear the voice of Paul, as he spoke these words at the Areopagus in Athens nearly 2000 years ago: “The divine is not an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” (Acts 17:29-30).